Quack Cures and Self-Remedies: Patent Medicine

Women’s Health and Household Hints

Erickson Antiseptic All-Purpose Ointment cardboard box, Erickson's General Store, Greenbush, Minnesota

If You Have a Cough, Cold or Sore Throat Try the North Star Lung and Throat Balsam, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The so-called golden age of patent medicines lasted from the mid-nineteenth century into the first two decades of the twentieth century. By modern standards, Americans during this period knew very little about human physiology, biochemistry, and endocrinology. They sought quick solutions for medical problems that they did not necessarily understand. Doctors, when available, were not always to be trusted. Hospitals, where available, were often considered places where people went to die. Patent medicines offered quick, convenient, and inexpensive relief from arthritis, depression, and mental illness, as well as women’s problems, indigestion, liver problems, and lack of hair growth. Children were dosed with medicines to aid their growth, feed their blood, and facilitate the movement of their digestive tract.  
A lack of government regulations enabled the sale of drugs that contained opium, laudanum, paregoric, alcohol, tar, and other ingredients consumers would not consider ingesting today. Increased government regulation brought about the end of the patent medicine era. In 1906 Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act, with the strong support of President Theodore Roosevelt. Although patent medicines continued to be produced after that date, new, stricter regulations demanded that ingredients be printed on labels, false claims be toned down, and advertising be more truthful. The legacy of this era lives on in today’s television infomercials for “miracle cleaning products” and “fast weight loss solutions.”

Tarrant's Seltzer Aperient. I keep my blood cool and brain clear by use of Tarrant's Seltzer Aperient

Schenck's Mandrake Pills for all bilious complaints

Laws Relating to the Practice of Pharmacy, General Statutes, Minnesota 1923

Patent Medicine, 1860-1920

Advertising Methods

Animals in Advertising

Racial Stereotypes in Advertising

Drugstores 

Made in Minnesota: Patent Medicine on the Prairie

Jupiter Tea cardboard box, Otto Silberman General Agent, St. Paul, Minnesota

Blind or Bleeding, Itching or Burning. One application brings relief.
—Advertisement for Humphreys' Homeo. Med. Company, New York
Pills, tonics, salves, and syrups made cure-all claims covering all kinds of ailments, from rashes and skin problems, coughs, and digestive troubles to melancholy, depression, and mental illness. Other concoctions included hair tonics that invigorated and restored hair growth as well as liniments for rheumatism and pills for neuralgia (severe headache pain). 
Drugs were also developed to address conditions referred to as "female weakness" and "loss of manhood." "Female weakness" could refer to a variety of health concerns, including postpartum depression, menopause, or menstrual cramps. "Loss of manhood" was a thinly veiled term for male impotence. There was a drug or tonic to address every ailment.

Benetol Powder for the Skin cannister, The Benetol Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Headache Capsules box, Goodrich Gamble Company, St. Paul, Minnesota

Double Strength Stomach and Liver Pills, Caron & Starn Druggists, Minneapolis, Minnesota

Quack Cures and Self-Remedies: Patent Medicine

Product Range

Product Range